In transporting packaging drums to food processing users, the container industry has typically transported the shipping container separately from its metal sealing cap, relying on a plastic dust cap installed in the drum fill opening for anticontaminant protection in the course of drum shipment. At the user location, the protective cap is removed, the drum is filled and the metal cap retrieved from its separate shipment box and installed in the fill opening, curled flanges of the sealing cap and fill opening neck then being jointly crimped to ready the packaged drum for shipment to a consumer.
Apart from the inconvenience to the container manufacturer in separately shipping the sealing caps and the inconvenience to the food processing user in monitoring the separate shipments of drums and sealing caps, this customary practice has had the further disadvantage of the plastic caps occasionally being pushed through the fill opening into the container interior. In the instance of food packaging, the container is rendered unsuitable for use on these incidences unless the dust cap is removed from the container interior.
While the foregoing situation has given rise to the desire for transporting the packaging drum and its metal sealing cap to the user as a releasably secured assembly and desired elimination of the protective plastic dust cap, no expeditious solution to the problem is presently practiced.